November 17th, 2010 Issue

Barbara McConaghy Johnson and Staci Capuano co-chaired Runway en Relevé Troisieme, the third annual fundraising fashion event of the Women’s Committee of the Washington Ballet at Bloomingdale’s Chevy Chase, on Nov. 12. Company dancers, with members of the Women’s Committee, Board of Directors and Jeté Society, modeled fashions capturing the 60’s look of Mad Men. The evening’s Parisian theme heralded Jackie Kennedy’s triumph of European fashion and diplomacy. The raffled “Grand Prix” was a Las Vegas package highlighted by a stay at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, the newest member of the Marriott Autograph Collection.

The announcement of Jim Brady’s departure from TBD is not just the old “different direction” story. It is akin to Roger Ailes leaving FOX, Aaron Sorkin leaving the West Wing, or Steve Jobs leaving Apple. TBD, Brady’s visionary idea for the next great media thing, was a truly online local news organization that leveraged all those much-ballyhooed elements of new media — blogs, linking, social media etc. It really was a different concept.

Ari is a trained draftsman, and it shows in his series, “Place Names,” showing at the Parish Gallery in Georgetown, November 19-30. Ari’s paintings are “old school”—stripped of flash, subject matter irony and mixed media techniques of many painters showing today. The work is straight oil paining: pigment, linseed oil, turpentine and board, all applied with earnest, grit and hard labor.

You know the drill. It’s time to celebrate the holidays. Not Thanksgiving. That’s practically yesterday. We’re talking about THE HOLIDAYS, when families reunite, and the grandparents will inevitably come bearing sweaters for everybody.

Walking around Cleo Braver’s backyard, looking out onto the Goldsborough Creek as hundreds of geese acclimated to their winter stead, it was easy to get lost in the crisp afternoon warmth. The East Coast and Bay area is a place of surprising beauty, even to those of us who have lived here all our lives. But it takes a certain kind of person to grow something out of that beauty. Leaving your job to start your own organic farm and promote Bay awareness and safe farming practices may not seem to be the most practical decision for most people, but for Braver, it was the only option.

To Ris Lacoste, Thanksgiving should be a simple affair. The dishes featured on her restaurant’s “To Go Sides and Pies” menu are effusive and original, yet comforting and familiar. The cuisine goes beyond unique spins on old favorites, recalling brilliant tastes or textures and producing them in an entirely new context. But Thanksgiving isn’t about reinventing the wheel, as she makes clear. To her, Thanksgiving is the raw, savory, unfettered beauty of the fall harvest and family. “I dedicate Thanksgiving dinner to my mother,” she says. “I still can’t do it like she can.”